


side effects

by reptilianraven



Category: Let's Play Cyberpunk Red - Polygon (Web Series)
Genre: Addiction, Anxiety, Gen, Self-Medication, Smoking, making the vague decision to maybe perhaps possibly try and quit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:26:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25955176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reptilianraven/pseuds/reptilianraven
Summary: Vang0 scoffs. “I’m not addicted.”“Yeah, tell that to the several packs I saw in your apartment’s trash bin last week.” Dasha rolls her eyes.“I’m not,” Vang0 hunches his shoulders and places the cigarette between his lips again. “It helps me, okay?.”“That sounds like something an addicted person would say.”Vang0 doesn’t give that response. Instead, he breathes in another mouthful of smoke and then exhales.-Or the one where Vang0 has a smoking addiction.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45





	side effects

**Author's Note:**

> yeah this is highkey just me projecting my own smoking addiction onto vang0 bang0 because spare catharsis? spare catharsis?
> 
> not proofread by anybody other than me because im tired and jus wanted to vent

It starts like this: Vang0 wakes up one month after he first woke up with no memory in the warehouse. He wakes up because he was dreaming of memories he doesn’t remember and answers he doesn’t have. He wakes up grasping for what he can’t reach, and then he does what he always does.

Vang0 thinks.

That’s the only thing he’s good at, afterall. He’s not nice, he’s not strong, and he definitely isn’t useful. His mind is the only thing he’s got going for him, so the moment he can, he thinks about his past. He thinks about everything he’s lost. He thinks about how deep in his chest, he feels some kind of grief, but he doesn’t know what he’s grieving over. He doesn’t know what was taken from him, and he never will and—

Well. 

Here comes the downside, to this mind. He thinks himself into traps and wounds. He thinks until his ribcage goes tight with panic.

He thinks until he can’t breathe.

Vang0 makes his way out of his apartment complex, idling by the entrance for some fresh air. He was hoping for some privacy, but there’s a girl here too, leaning on the wall. She’s scrolling through her agent, smoking a cigarette, and valiantly trying to mind her own business as Vang0 tries his best to calm down before he bursts into tears in front of a stranger.

His chest is tight. He feels tears pricking at his eyes. He chokes on an inhale and hates hates _hates_ how hard it is for him to breathe.

“Hey, uh,” the girl says. 

This is a nightmare. A stranger talking to him while he’s out of his mind with panic. _Please don’t say ‘are you okay’, please don’t say ‘are you okay’._

She doesn’t say ‘are you okay.’ Instead, she holds out her box of cigarettes towards him and asks “Want one?”

He doesn’t know why he nods. He doesn’t know why he takes one, bringing the cigarette to his lips with a trembling hand. 

The girl hands him her lighter, and he takes it with his trembling hand.

Vang0 lights the cigarette, inhales, and he’s surprised when he doesn’t cough it all out immediately. Sure, it scratches the insides of his throat in a subtle way, but it goes down into his lungs. He keeps it there for a second before breathing out, the smoke curling outwards and upwards into the night sky. 

Briefly, Vang0 wonders why people like doing this, but before he can develop that thought more, the first wave hits him. Or maybe washes over him, is a better way to put it. Nothing so sudden or jarring, just this gentle haze coming over his mind. His head feels a bit lighter than usual, like somebody had filled it to the brim with cotton instead of brain matter, and the tightness in his chest uncurls. The lump in his throat disappears. Breathing, like a miracle, feels easier.

A few seconds pass, and the calm feeling is gone. He feels bereft of it, and immediately takes another drag, chasing down the sensation.

By the time he finishes the cigarette, all his panic is gone, replaced instead by the smell of smoke.

-

He only smokes when he’s anxious. 

After that first one, whenever Vang0 feels his anxiety creeping in, he goes to his apartment’s smoking area, hanging around like the pathetic piece of shit he is, bumming cigarettes off of other people. Eventually, the usual crowd there calls him out for mooching all the time and he starts buying his own cigarettes. Just one pack. In the beginning, one pack is enough to last him a week and a half, but as the days go by, as his anxiety keeps coming back and coming back, and he starts to smoke more. Eventually, he figures that if smoking works so well at calming his anxiety, why can’t he use it to calm down from other emotions too?

So he only smokes when he feels bad.

Anger and insecurity and fear and sadness all get dispersed when Vang0 takes a drag. It all just gets replaced by the nice buzz in his head. Smoke takes up all the space in his mind, leaving no more space for pesky negative emotions, for thoughts that are too scary and too sharp, for urges and feelings and murky entities in his mind that he can’t think into submission. Vang0’s brain is always so noisy, always chattering on about anything and everything. Vang0’s mind makes his world a cacophony. Smoking makes his world a little bit quieter. Eventually, he figures that it’s pretty stupid to wait until he’s upset to take a smoke, why can’t he light up every time he can feel his thoughts pressing against the inside of his head?

So he only smokes when he feels like he has to.

Which is a lot of the time, Vang0 learns. It’s like there’s a creature in his chest that claws against his ribs, hungry for the taste of smoke, and he has no choice but to give in. He has no choice but to put a stick between his lips, light the end, and inhale.

So he only smokes when the itch in his gut tells him to.

He only smokes when he needs to really breathe.

-

Burger doesn’t like that he smokes.

“My Grampa’—” He says worriedly, leaning against the van as he watches Vang0 light a cigarette. “—He used to smoke. Cigars, mostly, but cigarettes were cheaper.”

“Yeah?” Vang0 says, blowing the smoke out and watching it wisp up into the cool night air.

“Yeah,” Burger scuffs his shoe against the asphalt. “He died of lung cancer.”

“Shit,” Vang0 winces, pocketing his lighter. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, it was a long time ago,” Burger waves a hand before looking at Vang0 more intently. “My point is that those things’ll kill you. They’ll kill you faster than you can get a cybernetic to fix it.”

Vang0 takes another drag, holds it in his chest, and breathes out. 

Vang0 says, “I can’t stop.”

Burger says, “Have you ever tried?”

“I know I won’t be able to.”

“But you haven’t _tried_.”

“I started smoking because it helps me. If I stop, I lose that help. I’ll be a mess. You wouldn’t want that.”

“I wouldn’t want my friend in the hospital either.”

“Look, just—” Vang0 sighs and takes another drag. He can’t look at Burger. He knows that if he does, Burger’s concerned expression will haunt him for days. “—I need this. You don’t get it, I _need_ this.”

“Well, I need you,” Burger says gently. 

Vang0 doesn’t know what to say to that. So he says nothing. 

-

Dasha is a bit more understanding, but is also, ultimately, on Burger’s side.

“You can quit, y’know,” She says, catching Vang0 mid drag in the alley outside her own apartment. “I did.”

“You smoked?” Vang0 raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Dasha walks over to him and stands at his side, watching the curling smoke with badly hidden disdain. “When I was a teenager. Did it as a ‘fuck you’ to my parents. It’s easy to get addicted to, I get it.”

Vang0 scoffs. “I’m not addicted.”

“Yeah, tell that to the several packs I saw in your apartment’s trash bin last week.” Dasha rolls her eyes.

“I’m not,” Vang0 hunches his shoulders and places the cigarette between his lips again. “It helps me, okay?.”

“That sounds like something an addicted person would say.”

Vang0 doesn’t give that response. Instead, he breathes in another mouthful of smoke and then exhales. He says, “How did you quit?”

“Realized the nicotine was staining my teeth,” Dasha shrugs. “Didn’t want to pay for the dental work.”

Vang0 laughs, surprised. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Dasha smiles, bumping Vang0’s shoulder. “I don’t know about you, but quitting for me was about finding a side effect I hated more than I loved the feeling.”

“Huh,” Vang0 says, fiddling with the filter of the cigarette with his thumb. “What if I love the feeling too much?”

“Find something else to love, genius.” Dasha says easily, and that makes Vang0 think.

Something better than breathing.

If only his big brain could figure that puzzle out.

-

Burger starts handing Vang0 lollipops every time they’re out together.

“What?” Vang0 stares at the lollipop as if it’s about to explode. 

“It’s a lollipop,” Burger smiles. “You put it in your mouth and it’s awesome.”

“I know what a lollipop is, Burger, I just,” Vang0 stutters. “Why?”

“I read online that sometimes smoking is because of an oral fixation—”

“A—an _oral fixation._ ”

“—and that it helps if you give your mouth other things to do—”

“Burger, I do not have an oral fixation, what the fuck.”

“—and I figured what’s the best thing for a mouth to do in the history of ever? Candy!”

“I’m not a kid,” Vang0 frowns, handing the lollipop back to Burger. “I don’t need this.”

“It’s cola flavooooor,” Burger sing-songs. “Your favoriiiiiite.”

Vang0 flushes. “This is emotional manipulation.”

“This is lengthening your lifespan,” Burger grins. “Now get in the van, Dasha will be pissed if we’re late again.”

“Okay, okay,” Vang0 says, getting in the van with the lollipop still in his hand.

He stares at the lollipop for the first five minutes of the drive. When the sixth minute hits, he feels the familiar itch of wanting a smoke, and his hand goes for the lighter in his pocket before Burger shoots him a pointed look and makes eyebrow waggles at the lollipop.

Vang0 sighs, unwrapping the lollipop and putting it in his mouth.

It doesn’t get rid of the itch. Doesn’t make it easier to breathe. 

But it does make Burger smile.

-

Dasha’s started pickpocketing his lighters from him every time they’re out together. 

“I’ll just keep buying a new one, you know,” Vang0 frowns when he checks his pocket and finds it lighter-less once again. “This won’t stop me.”

“But it does make your smoking life much harder,” Dasha smiles, because she’s evil. “Which is good enough for me.”

“I thought having friends who want me to quit would mean that you fuckers would be supportive and nice and shit,” Vang0 grumbles, leaning against the alleyway wall. “But Burger is just giving me candy and you’re just being mean.”

“Because we have some semblance of a brain cell, Vang0, since when have you ever valued kindness?”

“Fair point.”

“You value information and puzzles and cunning mind games,” Dasha says. “This is us stooping down to your level.”

Vang0 rolls his eyes. “God, how do you two stand me?”

“We’re your friends, duh,” Dasha punches him in the shoulder lightly. “We make the choice to stand you everyday because we like you. Now, since you can’t light your cigarette, wanna come back up to mine and play some shitty video games?”

“Fine,” Vang0 huffs, pushing himself off of the wall.

The itch in his gut is ravenous, but the grin Dasha gives him makes him want to tamp down on the craving.

Makes him want to try.

-

Vang0’s only good at one thing; thinking. 

Because of that, he’s got a pretty good self awareness. He’s not an idiot. He’s aware that he’s got some kind of anxiety disorder and that he’s been self-medicating with cigarettes. He’s aware that it’s a crutch, a way to run away from his problems instead of fixing them. He’s aware that he’s addicted and in denial and that his smoking habit will kill him if he keeps going at this rate. He knows. He knows, because knowing things is the only thing he’s got going for him.

He knows that every time he smokes he’s trading bits of his life away for a moment of peace.

But he also knows this:

He knows that Burger keeps buying really nice cola lollipops for him in an effort to help him stop.

He knows that Dasha keeps putting in effort to steal his lighters no matter what it is they’re doing.

He knows that, maybe, just maybe, it's possible to learn how to breathe with their help instead.

**Author's Note:**

> dont smoke guys. really. it’s not worth it
> 
> im [actualbird](http://actualbird.tumblr.com/) on tumblr


End file.
